Raphaella only noticed the Our Lady of Czestochowa holy card on the dashboard of her car the afternoon her mural of the Virgin and Child officially was installed on the side of Fletcher Free Library in Burlington. Her mother, Suzie, gave it to her right before Raphaella Brice, a 26-year-old Haitian American artist, moved to Vermont and began discovering her vocation.

Mary has been a guiding presence in both of their journeys. Suzie, born in Haiti, lost her mother at the age of 12. “She cried for three straight months,” Raphaella remembered, “then made the Virgin Mary her mother. Since then, she always had this belief that the Lord had great things in store for her.”

Raphaella’s parents found their way to the United States, and she grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The transition was difficult for the family, adapting to a different culture and struggling to make ends meet. The burden to make a life in this country fell on Suzie. “My mom did everything in the house and was constantly working. Her anxiety would get the best of her, and our family was losing connection with each other,” Raphaella said.

It changed when Raphaella was in high school. Suzie started a home daycare, and taking care of young children turned out to be a vocation that guided her back to herself and her faith.

“There was this dynamic relationship between my mother’s Catholic journey and personal growth. When she started her daycare, she jumped deeper into her faith,” Raphaella said. “Through it, I saw her overcome a lot of her internal battles and do the work of bringing the family together. Watching my mother spiritually grow was like watching a prophet grow into her calling.”

Prophet might seem like a strong word; not in their relationship. Suzie helped birth Raphaella’s artistic vocation. By chance, her mother saw a documentary when she was pregnant about the Renaissance artist Raphael on PBS. “She was fascinated by his story and named me Raphael. It was the hospital that added the ‘la’ at the end,” the artist said.

The name, meaning “God heals,” set the course for Raphaella’s life. Her name goes back to St. Raphael the Archangel, patron of travelers, and traveling is how she came into the world; she was born in 1997 on the side of a highway in West Palm Beach, Florida.

When Raphaella moved to Burlington in 2020, she leaned into her artistic talents for the first time. She heard about the mural contest and a friend suggested she depict a Black Madonna and Child like Our Lady of Czestochowa for the Juneteenth theme.

The idea also made perfect spiritual sense: Mary is a huge part of her Haitian heritage and her own spiritual journey. Like her mother, Raphaella said, “I took Mary as my mother.” She had begun a period of purification and prayer at this time, which brought her back closer to Mary and through her to the Church. “Mary is the Church. And her holding Our Lord shows how much of the Church is held by women.”

Raphaella won the contest and when finished turned to an art project in Waterbury and painted in community “Madonna’s Earth.”

When talking about the meaning of her latest mural, Raphaella gave further spiritual context to what she’s said in other venues. “It’s not just a pretty picture. It’s the Virgin Mary. And painting it is my little way of helping her to save souls, healing community, and people that haven’t found any hope elsewhere. I hope to be a vessel of the Spirit, bringing her power into places she wouldn’t be otherwise,” she said.

Suzie says the rosary three times a day. “I’m not as dedicated as my mother,” Raphaella admitted, “but I say the rosary when I can and am working on growing deeper in my faith and a routine of prayer.”

Every day Raphaella says the prayer on the back of the Our Lady of Czestochowa prayer card that her mother gave her. It’s St. John Paul II’s “Prayer for Life,” which ends with words that seem to capture Raphaella’s work in Vermont: “to build, together with all people of good will, the civilization of truth and love, to the praise and glory of God, the Creator and lover of life.”

Raphaella’s story is far from over, but in that prayer card — in its image of Mother and Child and the prayer on the back — there’s a sense of coming full circle. In his 1999 Letter to Artists, Pope John Paul II wrote that all people “are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”

That’s the gift Suzie continues to give. “My mother is one of my greatest role models, an example of how to live with self-discipline, discernment, and trust in the unknown. If she wasn’t on that spiritual journey, I don’t know where I would be right now,” Raphaella said. “As mother, she helped me see my artistic gifts and that I myself am a work of art.”

— Damian Costello is the director of postgraduate studies at NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community, a speaker with the Vermont Humanities Council, and a member of St. Augustine Parish in Montpelier.

—Originally published in the Winter 2023 issue of Vermont Catholic magazine.